Israel wants to be the tech hub for the world cannabis industry – Quartz

That admonition kicked off the first day of presentations and roundtables at Cannatech, a three-day conference on the marijuana industry held this past week in Israel. Instead of pot edibles, hundreds of attendees munched on pita sandwiches and Turkish bourekas.

As legalization slowly takes a foothold and entrepreneurs and cannabis enthusiasts drool over markets some estimate to be worth tens of billions of dollars, the goal of Israel’s (second annual) Cannatech conference was to pitch the tiny country as a hotbed of valuable know-how, translating Israel’s reputation for spawning successful businesses in tech, medicine, and agriculture into the cannabis industry.

“Everything is set up here to be the epicenter of cannabis research.” Israeli pot startups already generating a buzz include